My wife, the brake killer
 

My wife's daily driver is a 2019 Traverse AWD. It has about 50k on it and I just installed the third set of front brakes on the car. I got about 40k out of the OEM pads, which I was disappointed about. I installed Duralast Gold ceramic pads and freshened up the rotors in March and 10k miles later, they are toast.

She's notoriously hard on our cars and has a heavy foot, but I've never seen someone who can kill a set of brakes so quick in daily driving! Granted, we do live at the top of a pretty steep hill, but it doesn't seem to be an issue for my daily driver.

It looks like some debris may have got between the pad and rotor on the passenger side which hastened the demise. She does drive on unpaved roads several times a week. Either way, these pads were down to the nub. Not surprising since the front wheels are always covered in black brake dust. Oddly, the rear brakes have plenty of meat on the OEM pads and look great.

I ended up replacing the front pads and rotors with a PowerStop Z23 Carbon Fiber-Ceramic set for towing. Hopefully I get more than 10k out of them otherwise I may have to get used to doing the brakes when I change the oil.

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the running joke in my house.. my wife has smoked brakes in our fords chevys pontiacs now a tundra. she insists the brake engineers have moved from every car co we have owned to the next car we have owned..yet i watch in horror the few times im in the pass seat as she speeds up to red lights then slams on the brakes at the same time STANDING on the brake pedal,,she will never understand the theory of engine braking..

It’s pretty simple guys.

Women shouldn’t be driving.

Period. :D

Can't complain about my wife or my daughters. The wife has put 240,000 miles on her Cadillac and is now on her third set of pads.
I taught them early on about engine braking and they all know how to downshift on hills or steep grades. The Cadillac is pretty easy. Move the shifter to the right and slap it forward or back

I’ve mentioned this before in other threads.
Example, my wife drove an ‘03 Avalon for years, I NEVER got more than about 8-9 months (around 15,000 miles) out of the front brakes, even using top of the line NAPA pads and rotors. She gets a new car, I use the Avalon as a daily driver. I never did the brakes in the couple years I drove that car!
She is oblivious to stop signs and red lights, speed up to them, SLAM the brakes on.
As of right now, I have 101,000 miles on my Duramax brakes. Just sayin’

Does she drive around with her left foot riding the brake pedal? I think a lot of people do that without paying attention to it.

Thats pretty nuts. I mean I dont think Im particularly easy on the brakes. In fact my dad always complains that I wait too long and brake too hard. (but hes a baby) I always tell him hes better at driving slowly than I am, and I am better than him at literally every other aspect of existing on this planet.

I changed the pads and rotors on my 2017 Ram 1500 at I think 90k, or maybe it was 100. Whatever the schedule was.

That's how my mother drove. Left foot resting on the brake the entire time with just enough pressure to have the brake lights on continuously.. I used to watch her drive away down the long road from our house, brake lights on the whole time. No matter how I tried to convince her not to do that she would not listen. It's a miracle she never got rear ended. With the lights on continuously, you could never tell when she was braking.

:) ;)

LOL.

My Mom, when she was alive....and driving. She either had the throttle pedal FULLY applied, or the brake pedal fully applied!

NOTHING in between!!!

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Frank

To address the OP's actual problem, the rear brakes need the attention. The Traverse layout is a brake system killer for sure. A super heavy FWD car basically, with a truck/SUV body on it with possibly an AWD system if equipped. My estimate is when working properly, 70-75% of the braking would be done by the front anyway. Now add in those glazed rear rotors and old, super hard rear pads and the rear may be doing 5-10% of the braking. Super high center of gravity, tons of weight transfer when braking, no front brake pads will last long. Also IMO, the front brakes are way, way too small for what amounts to a small school bus. I really like your choice of Power Stop front pads and rotors. I have had excellent luck with those. But to really solve the issue or extend the life, I would put the same stuff on the rear.

Good call. I hadn’t considered the rear rotors might be glazed, but there’s such a difference between condition of the rear and front, that may be the case.

Most people are like robots where they don't look ahead, stab the gas and brakes, ride the brakes while tailgating in heavy traffic rather than leaving a gap, etc.

I have 25 years and 170K miles on the original brakes on my Honda accord. The original factory front brakes have about 25% wear. The rear shoes have less than 5% wear. I grease the pins in the front brakes every 5 years so they don't seize up.

The car will probably end up in the junkyard with the original brakes all around.

FWIW;
Always use Acebono pads if available for your application.
No dust.
https://akebonobrakes.com/
Use the quality high carbon version of rotors.
Don't just pad - rotor slap it and call it good.
New-rebuilt calipers are cheap, also new rubber brake lines.
I usually buy online from rockauto.
and lol
https://i.postimg.cc/LYXpVJYd/b6eb1ed741d319da-Copy.png

Part list; 2019 Traverse AWD w/V6 I assume,
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...D0chC%2B3JCH6S
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...D0chC%2B3JCH6S
https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...rake+hose,1792

My wife used to do EXACTLY the same thing to every vehicle she's ever owned. Some of the cheaper models she's owned lucky to get 10,000 on a set of front pads/rotors, a few of the higher end models she's driven in more recent years 30,000 best case scenario.

I second B-man's vote that women shouldn't be driving and even if they were allowed to there should be something in the vehicle that automatically disables their cell phones till the reach their final destination.

Anyhow and on a more serious note I've ran the gauntlet with brake pads and rotors. Years ago NAPA was the place to go, now all these auto parts store pretty much sell the same low to mid-level junk. In recent years I"ve switched to Power Stop and compared to what else is out there they are closer to the top of the pile. I always select the zinc plated rotors when the option is available, vs plain or painted as it really wards off the rust we get from all the salt on the roads this far North.......

Agree,
The power stop parts [drilled-slotted rotors and coated calipers] have been solid.
The zinc coating on the rotors for my BMW 328I are still like new after 2-1/2 yrs. out here in WA state.

My wife doesn't kill brakes but all four rims are curb struck. It took forever to get her to NOT have her foot on the gas pedal when starting the car.

Not all women drive crazy, I replaced the front brakes on my mothers Toyota Camry at 130K miles and again at 250K miles. It has over 300K miles now and still on the factory original rear shoes.

My grandfather was a 2 foot driver, and to make things worse, had neck surgery that left feeling in his legs at around 50%. He pretty much stabbed the throttle and controlled the speed with the brake pedal on an early 80's Lincoln Towncar, goin through front brakes every 5-6 months even though they never traveled more than 10-15 miles from home. Also blamed my grandmother for going through brakes even though she drove conservatively.

My wife will go through at least two or three sets of pads to my one. The main problem I see with lots of women drivers, including my wife, is accelerating towards an obvious stopping situation.
I take my foot off the accelerator if I see a red light ahead even if it's a block away. Often the light will go green before I come to a complete stop.

I do the same, and notice how the people in the lane next to me who are accelerating and braking hard usually don't get any further ahead in traffic.

I call it binary driving. Pedals must be perceived as switches by some, as the concept of proportional control seems to get lost.

My father (loved him anyway) was legendary for maintaining constant highway speed by tapping the gas pedal on and off. My sons avoided his car like the plague when we were all traveling together.

Similar to Greg, I now expect anyone behind me to jump into an adjacent lane as I decelerate and creep up to a red light. We both get there, I just don't see the benefit of getting to the light faster if it ends in hard braking. I'm sure I get viewed as a sluggish old fart with no respect for their stressful rush, some of which is true.

Adult daughter gets about 10-15K average out of front brake pads, doesn’t matter the vehicle type or weight. Rest of family (three other adult drivers) get around 50K no matter the vehicle……..

That's how I drive. I let the idiots burn up their brakes and fuel by racing up to the red light so when I get there, they triggered it and it's green. Most drivers think it's old man mentality but it's just common sense. I've been doing that since I was 19.

I'd like to think it's not specific to women. I figure there's a lot of folks who drive that way because they don't understand the mechanics of a car. That's how we end up with all those photos and YouTube videos of rotors worn down to the cooling fins.

Per mgarblik's advice, I ordered up the corresponding PowerStop Z23 set for the rear. It's werid - they have a Z26 Extreme kit for the rear, but they don't offer a corresponding Z26 kit for the front. It appears the pad compound is the same as the Z23 but the Z26 have stainless shims so I don't think I'm missing out on too much. It's kind of funny running drilled and slotted rotors on the family truckster. Will report back after 10k to see how they held up.

If the person running the vehicle into the ground is not the one that has to sweat or freeze, bust knuckles to repair it, there is no reason to GAF.

Kind of like when I watch my wife play a game on X-box ... I try to explain to her ... the buttons are electric, they don't work any better or faster if you pound on them :)

I've put several sets of pads and rotors on my 2010 Equinox. It has 175K miles on it now. 55K miles ago I put on a set of Bosch rotors I bought from Rock Auto. They still look new. I did change the pads recently and it still stops great.

Wow, I don’t think I could in good conscience let someone like that drive, I know that I couldn’t ride in the car with them. The car would be in a constant state of brake fade. it would drive me nuts.

Me: "Honey, its a brake PEDAL, not a brake SWITCH."

Same!
 

My wife has broken the controls on our stove twice. She doesn't understand the difference between a sensor and a button.

All in good fun……:pound:

Bart, I don’t agree. I have three sisters who do not “smoke” brakes but my dad is who taught them to drive. He was hell when he thought you were using the brakes unnecessarily. On the other hand, you have my wife; she actually brakes on bends while driving on the interstate. I’ve been attempting to break this habit of hers for twenty-seven years. She has gotten better; I haven’t had to replace the brakes on her Tiguan, yet but it’s only been 21,000 miles.

I took the Traverse to open shop night at my son's school last night for what I thought would be a quick swap of the rear brakes and got schooled in electronic parking brakes. It turned into such a debacle which I made worse by accidentally applying the parking brake when the calipers were off the rotors. At any rate, we got the new gear installed and the pads bedded in. Curious if the old rears looked glazed (I think so?). There was still plenty of meat on them. With the new rotors and pads hopefully the fronts and rears will wear more evenly now.

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Decades ago my uncle retrained his wife's bad braking habit by wiring a buzzer to the brake light switch. He claimed after several weeks she was cured of over applying the brakes and he removed the buzzer.

Did it include a shock collar as well?

Women who go late and hard on the brakes are scary as hell to ride with.
They have the same mental block as women who stab men to death. :wife:

I would just keep a quiet check on the brakes and replace as needed. :thumbup:

LOL - my wife does watch a lot of Dateline :eek:

Haha this tread both hilarious and scary...glad my gal doesn't have that issue however the British step dad used to two foot his new Olds all the time for no reason 🙄

Those rotor's look like they got hot to me.
The bluing tells the tale.
You should have replaced the calipers front and rear. IMO

You need to teach your wife to drive with one foot. She's probably has one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Constantly dragging the brake because her left foot is resting on the brake pedal. A lot of women seem to do that and it's not the correct way to drive. When I married my wife she was driving with two feet but I broke her of that real quick.

I cleaned and inspected all the calipers for damage when I did the brakes. There was no indication of heat damage or leaking. When was doing the rear brakes and had the challenges with the e-brake we actually took one off the car. Seemed just fine so maybe I got lucky.

I was driving the Traverse around town today and I can confidently say the braking is much better than it was before. Seems very likely that the rears weren't doing their job. There's also substantially less brake dust on the front wheels, so good signs all around. We'll see how they hold up, but PowerStop has my business for brakes in the future.